


i can't tell the sun from the moon

by charming_syrai



Category: X-Men (AU)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 05:36:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charming_syrai/pseuds/charming_syrai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sequel to epsilon (50 sentences) | <i>Because in her head, it wasn't about right and wrong then. It was just about being together.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	i can't tell the sun from the moon

**Author's Note:**

> **#50 - Believe.** The day he leaves the school, you don't cry or wail because you believe that when he's ready, he'll come back for you and when he does, you know that this time around you'll fucking take his offer.

When she was younger, a lot younger than now, she believed.

 

She believed in a lot of things, actually, but above all she thought she _believed_ in John, in Pyro, and in the man he could be.

 

Though she never really learned to share his hateful view of the world and humans, never came to approve of his need for violence, she still understood with perfect clarity where all the burning hatred originated. She understood what he'd been through and because of that she never wanted to change him. To heal the wounds and help him get over the anger, that’s what she wanted. At least that’s what she thought then.

 

_It isn’t a question of changing who he is,_ she claimed once when Jubilee demanded to know what the fuck was going on with her and the psychotic pyromaniac (Jubilee’s words, not hers).

 

_Really, it isn’t a question of changing who he is,_ she’d repeated, determined to explain, to make her understand that _it's about loving what he will be._

 

Of course, years later she learned it was actually the same thing; exactly the same deep structure, only in disguise.

 

But before she learned that and her own foolishness, she also believed some time apart would make him realize that he needed her. He'd be forced to realize that he _loved_ her just as desperately as she loved him.

 

A week maybe, two, no more than a month and he’d see that, feel what she felt every day he wasn’t there, _near._ She believed, like only a naïve little girl can believe, that he would miss her so damn much that he simply couldn’t stay away. That he’d come back, just for her.

 

Even if he'd come back and asked her to join the Brotherhood for him, she would've done it.

 

At least when she was younger, a lot younger than now, she would've.

 

Because in her head, it wasn't about right and wrong then. It was just about being together.

 

And so, every night, for years and years, right before falling asleep she’d be tucked safely under the warm covers, all too content in her belief, and she’d imagine all the different ways he could reappear and change her life. Not for good, not for bad, but for _ever._

 

In these fragments, he’d save her and she’d save him in turn and they’d both be granted redemption, despite the sins they might have made in the past.

 

Just because they loved each other.

 

Believing in that fantasy was what moved Marie then; what got her bones up in the mornings and made her sleep through the nights.

 

Truthfully, it wasn’t until her 21st birthday that her faith faltered and she thought, just for a moment, that maybe he wouldn’t come back. The first time she thought that maybe, _just maybe,_ he hadn’t come back because he couldn’t. Maybe he’d been killed in the midst of war; simply one more faceless victim of hate on the endless list of lost souls and no one from her side even knew.

 

She grieved for two years.

 

And then Bobby tells her, so fucking casually, that he’s not dead like everyone thought he was. Like she thought he was.

 

_No,_ he says as nonchalantly as if it was someone they don’t even know, someone they never cared about. And then, not seeing the tears in her eyes, he says with a sad shrug, _but apparently Johnny killed 12 humans…_

 

Bobby says, _they’d taken the cure the day before, so._

 

And she says, _fuck_ and her whole world comes crashing down.

 

Until that moment, she’d honestly thought grieving for a loved one was the worst it could get. It wasn’t.

 

So when she turned 23, she finally came to the conclusion that his reasons, whatever they were or might have been, didn’t matter anymore. It hurt, a little, to realize all those years spent praying for his well-being; years spent waiting had been for nothing. And only then, she gave up on believing.

 

So to celebrate her 24th birthday, she went out with a few of her closest friends and didn’t even think of _him_ or his betrayal, not even once.

 

After that it was a lot easier and those days, the ones going by without Pyro entering her head at all, they were a lot more frequent and somewhere along the way she learned to embrace them. They made her happier, even.

 

Though that among many other things have changed, there are things that haven’t. The war is still on and now at 26 she’s growing tired of it, of all the battles and deaths. Frankly, she no longer gives a rat’s ass who wins in the end. She’s not even sure if this fight will see an end, ever, but she keeps hoping for it regardless.

 

For one, it would make her little life so much easier. It frustrates her, the whole fucking war... and maybe it makes her a bad person too, she's not sure, but every time there’s a new article in the paper, or something about yet another mutant death on the news, it makes her grieve. Only, not for the persons lost, but for herself.

 

Those dark flashes of black on white, of blood and pain, they keep reminding her of that childish dream she once had. Make her remember how _fucking_ childish she once was.

 

Sometimes she’s able to erase their existence; ignore the small details she doesn’t want to face. Sometimes it’s way too easy to close her eyes and ears and simply turn away from everything rotten and pretend she has no clue.

 

That there is no past for her to regret.

 

And then sometimes… well, sometimes it’s not that easy at all.

 

Like today. Like when he’s there, in her pastel-colored living room, sitting on her favorite armchair with a cocked head and a smirk on his lips, asking, “So, Roguey, wanna offer me a beer?”

 

***

 

When he was younger, a lot younger than now, he believed.

 

He believed in a lot of things, in a lot of stupid things too, but above all he _believed_ in Magneto and the word he was spreading.

 

In fact, he's never stopped believing but it's not enough anymore.

 

And he knows, just like he's always known, that trying to explain everything won't do any good because deep down she has never seen it through his eyes and she will never, not ever, understand it the way he needs her to.

 

But it doesn't matter. After all, he's Pyro and he can live without her acceptance.

 

"So, Roguey," he starts, fully aware of all the damn risks he's taking, "wanna offer me a beer? Or should I just cut to the chase?"

 

It's surreal, the moment that really isn't a moment at all, but simply _something_ that they're having, lingering between.

 

He thinks _it_ might be two lifetimes; two sets of past, the shared present and the one future they entwine.

 

She stares and then, after a awhile of deafening silence she actually _snorts_ , growling, "No. I want you to fucking cut your heart out. I want you to give me back all the years I lost and-" she breathes in, anger radiating hotly, "I want you to get the fuck out of my house."

 

He chuckles, soft sounds of laughter forming in the back of his throat, because this is the kind of woman he always wanted her to become and hell, because-

 

"Can't do any of those," he says simply, "but I can tell you one thing. When we have kids, we ain't naming any of them Bobby, okay?"

 

Because while he _can_ live without her acceptance, he can't live without her presence.

 

***

 

On her 28th birthday, 7 months pregnant, she has come a full circle and decides their first-born will be called Logan.


End file.
